Not Killed By My Pants

Posted: February 19, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , | 1 Comment

 

 

A couple of weeks ago my trainer looked at me in my stretchy workout/yoga pants and told me I need to buy some smaller ones.  Really?  Stretchy black tight pants that have not worn out are just fine with me especially if they are not skin tight.  I am never going to wear a pair of those things out when I only wear them to work out and don’t live in them like real athletes do.  I also have no need for total body hugging since it is not like I am running so fast and am worried about drag.  The only drag I like is the kind that my Washington friends do when they borrow my old formal wear.

 

I had noticed that I had a little more room in the thighs of my yoga pants, an area that is almost always the tightest spot on me, but I was kind of enjoying non-thigh-clinging pants.  The idea of having to go try on athletic wear, even in a smaller size is not my idea of fun.  In the world of tight bodies I am still a non-performer.  The women who work out for a living and work at workout wear stores just for the discounts look at me as a failure athlete.

 

If I had a giant paper cutout of what I used to look like a hundred and forty five pounds ago they might treat me differently, but since I am still not a hard body and probably never will be, I am dismissed as a person who is buying yoga pants because they are stretchy and forgiving and not because I might actually do yoga, or lift weights or walk 20,000 steps a day, which by the way is over nine miles of my pitiful strides.

 

I continued to wear my baggy pants.  That was until yesterday when I was walking at my treadmill desk at a brisk 3.2 miles per hour that is almost running for me and my pants fell down.  I am happy to report I was coordinated enough not to have been dragged under the belt of the treadmill and strangled by my pants.

 

So my trainer was right.  I needed to stop wearing those too big pants.  I went to my trusty closet of dreams where the too small clothes live and found a lovely pair of barley used workout pants that seemed to fit the size I am now just fine.  The thigh area is a little tighter, the butt is definitely not as lose, but hey I did not have to go to one of those stores that makes me feel badly about myself.

 

I wish that the same people who conceived the Dove beauty campaign that celebrates all types of women would move into the workout wear segment.  If all women were praised for working out the body they have and not made to feel like they are unworthy if they don’t already have a perfect body then the sales of workout clothes would soar.  I doubt I will get to be a smaller size in yoga pants than the pair I am wearing now so I am going to have to baby the few ones I have.  I am happy with myself and don’t need to go in a store and have an hourly worker make me feel otherwise.

The Pants News Network

Posted: November 13, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

 

 

Today at a ladies who lunch type outing for my friend Hannah’s birthday the conversation took the turn to inevitable search for well fitting pants.  My friends at lunch are all very trim, to use an old fashioned word and I would have thought that finding pants that fit correctly would not have been an issue for any of them.  Apparently issues of fit happen to people of all body types.

 

Inevitably the conversation turned to the news-making pants story of the hour Lululemon yoga pants and their none to attractive in everyway founder Chip Wilson.  If you don’t watch the “Pants News Network” here’s the background. A woman bought a pair of yoga pants at Lululemon and was unhappy that the legs of the pants pilled between the thighs.  You know what pilling is… when little bits of fabric gather in tiny knot-like pieces and stand proud of the rest of the fabric.  Pilling is something that cheep fabrics do more often than better materials.  When the woman went to return the pants she was told that the pants were not defective but her thighs rubbing together caused the problem.

 

Whoa, whoa, whoa…break in the “Pants News Network” for my side bar conversation.  Have any of you ever bought a pair of pants that had some disclaimer to a guarantee that read, “guaranteed only if you weigh under 100 pounds are 5 foot six or taller and have not eaten any pancakes in the last six years.”

 

Back to the “Pants News Network”  — so a reporter was interviewing Chip Wilson about the “Pilling Issue” and he said “We are a technology company”, wait I thought he was a yoga wear company.  Sure workout wear has taken a technological step forward, but a technology company, really?

 

Chip goes on to explain the pilling problem away by saying, “That some woman’s bodies don’t work.”  The reporter, a woman, in a moment of disbelief, said, “So their bodies don’t work for pants?”

 

As far as I can tell my body has never worked for anything.  Well, maybe my body would work for food, but for the most part I don’t think my body as a whole makes the decision about working, just my brain.  Perhaps some pants don’t work on my body, but if you are a pants maker you better figure out how to make a product that you can stand behind for any type of body that can put it on.  Oh yeah, we are talking about Lululemon, the same company that had to recall millions of pairs of pants because they were too sheer.  I guess you would not want to stand behind those pants.  Seems like the “technology” failed there.

 

The faithful fat-thigh-yoga-pants-wearing watchers of the pants channel got all up in Chip Wilson’s grill about the bodies not working comment.  He, in his holier than thou way went back on the “Pants News Network” to not apologize, but say he was sad people got mad about his comments.

 

Here is the bottom line, buy your clothes from a company that thinks they are a clothing manufacturer and not a technology company.  Don’t try and squeeze yourself into anything.  Thank goodness we don’t have to wear 1970’s Levi’s with the waist size printed on the leather tag on your kidney.  That being said, no one else will have any idea what size you are wearing so buy the size that fit’s right.  If the product ends up being defective take it back and demand satisfaction.  If they won’t stand behind their product call me because there is nothing I like better than a good retail fight, I’ll go back to the store with you.  One caveat, make sure the store does not have any signs posted at the checkout saying there are no returns for people they don’t think are worthy of wearing their products in the first place. I think in Chip Wilson’s mind they have those signs in all his stores.

 

Yoga Pants

Posted: March 25, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

 

 

Today after Yoga I went to coffee with my friends Sara and Michelle.  Since we had all been in Yoga together it seemed perfectly fine to be in public for coffee together in our Yoga pants.  Michelle and Sara looked better than I did post Yoga.  Perhaps I should have put some make up on to go to class, but since I tend not to look at my face in the mirror because I am busy trying to judge if my shoulders are down and back or my leg is straight I skip it.

 

After whiling the rest of the morning away discussing important issues like drivers ed, we finally broke up since the lunch crowd was showing up in real clothes, except for one friend who was in her tennis clothes.

 

I was starting to get self-conscious about being out so late in Yoga clothes, no make up, hair, which had not been washed and had been hanging upside down for a while so it stuck into an odd-do.  What I really wanted was an sign on my chest that read, “Yes, I actually was at Yoga, I’m not just slumming it.”

 

Apparently I am not the only person her feels this way because when I went to pick up after school today a friend told me she was not getting out of her car because she was still in her Yoga pants.  I asked if it was because she was wearing Luluemon see through Yoga pants and she said, no.  This particular friend is tall, thin, incredibly athletic and looks great in a potato sack so if she was feeling uncomfortable being in her Yoga pants at 3:30 then I felt perfectly justified that I felt that way just hours before.

 

Why do the tennis people not feel uncomfortable being out in their little skirts, while Yoga pant wearing elicits some sort of guilt?  I actually did Yoga today and yes it is not quite the work out tennis is, but my Yoga pants are the same thing I will wear to work out with my trainer tomorrow and that is an hugely butt busting activity much more strenuous than a doubles tennis game.

 

Since I don’t have a sign to wear announcing why I am dressed the way I am I will declare it here for good.  If you see me and I have Yoga pants on I recently must have been exercising.  Don’t think I am slumming it; I would have my jeans on if I was doing that.  If I am really dressed up I had a meeting with someone who does not know me well or someone I was asking for money.  Now you know you may want to avoid me if you see me coming in anything but jeans, I am either smelly or am going to ask you for money.